“Although there are many Iraqis who hate us, who welcome and toast and celebrate our deaths, there are also those who would lay down their lives for us.”

By Alex E. Limkin

American poet Robert Frost once wrote, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall ... and makes gaps even two can pass abreast." Had he continued to respire into these troubled times, instead of succumbing to the humus in 1963, Frost might have written, "Something there is that doesn't love an occupying army ... and fashions improvised explosives with cigarettes dangling from mouths sans dentifrice."

At the Feb. 22 meeting, councilors unanimously approved a $300,000 contract with artist Michael Metcalf to provide sculptures for the I-40/Louisiana Blvd. interchange. The Metcalf project is described as two assemblages of 30-foot-high bronze and stainless steel spires rising from boulder bases. Councilors voted to fill two Board of Ethics and Campaign Practices seats vacated by Isabel Cabrera and Seth Heath. Councilor Michael Cadigan nominated retired lawyer and former EPC member Alan Schwartz. Councilor Craig Loy nominated air traffic controller Joe Maguire, a graduate of St. Pius High School and the U.S. Naval Academy. Councilor Brad Winter nominated pharmaceutical salesman and former Council candidate Sander Rue. Schwartz and Rue won the two places.

A new bill from our senior senator tackles immigration reform

By Jerry Ortiz y Pino

From the vacuum created by the Bush administration's failure to put forward any kind of immigration reform initiative, a remarkable piece of legislation has emerged. It isn't sponsored by any of the Congressional Democrats (who seem just as chary of burning their fingers on this hot potato as the neo-cons are) but instead by (trumpet salute, please) New Mexico's own Sen. Pete Domenici.

Dateline: Germany—According to reports by German police, the small Bavarian village of Elsa was flooded by liquid pig manure last Wednesday after a tank containing the fertilizer burst. Sewage rose up to 20 inches in the courtyards and streets of Elsa after gushing from the 65,000-gallon tank. “The village was swamped with green-brown liquid and it was pig manure--the mother of all muck,” said Rainer Prediger, a police spokesperson in the nearby town of Coburg.

Although I was not lucky enough to know her as a good friend, I attended high school with Amy Biehl back in 1984-85. Santa Fe High School, at that time, was the only public high school in the city, and it was a huge, terrifying, racially divided, badly overcrowded, violence-plagued school from which a small percentage (Amy included) emerged successfully. I became truant to escape the horror. In danger of having me permanently expelled, my mother began looking for other options. There was a Catholic school (we're not Catholic and couldn't afford tuition if we were), an Indian school (we're not Native American), and that was about it. My mother and I fled the city to find a larger pool of schools from which to choose, and landed in Albuquerque. I ended up graduating from West Mesa during the years it was lucky enough to have been led by Richard Toledo.